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Found out 14 days ago about a 2.5 mo affair my wife had with a Dad on son's soccer team. It was the same day I and her parents forced her into inpatient alcohol rehab as she was such an intoxicated mess she couldn't cover her tracks. It has been real difficult because communication with her is limited during treatment so my mind gets to wander too much. She says all the right things now about reconciliation (according to the pillars I have read about on here) and I have read thousands of messages and see the similarities in my story with so many others.

But I have yet to see a post where the WS says she "started the relationship as friends to make you jealous, because you refused to go to MC." It grew out of control, but I wanted to get caught so I could force you into MC." I was actually avoiding MC because her drinking and attitude was so bad I believed she needed personal counseling and sobriety before the marriage issues were addressed.

My personal opinion is she was flippant with her affair to spite me, not to get found out and save us.

The way I see it now, I am being asked to take a risk (reconcile) on an adulteress, substance abuser and liar. I've got two great young kids who think their Mom is at "camp" to stop drinking wine and learning to be nice again.

She's got two more weeks in the house. This board has been a mind saver. Thank you

Married 14 years
Dated 5 years
D-day May 2013
Trying to R, keep her sober and protect my kids.
2 kiddos 11 and 8

Posts: 16 | Registered: Jun 2013 | From: Southwest

1Faith♀ 38975Member # 38975

Posted: 5:29 PM, June 20th (Thursday), 2013

Hopefully you are in IC as well.

Addiction isn't an excuse but does blur a lot of lines. A lot.

If you love your wife and want to see if it can work then I suggest waiting until she gets out of rehab. You will be dealing with a lot just in the addiction recovery alone.

Take it in steps. Day by day just for the first six months or so. If nothing else for your kids.

Your wife is projecting and what you'll find is there is NO excuse for cheating. None. Hopefully through her recovery she will learn to take ownership for her actions and behavior.

You have a long road ahead. I wish you luck. You sound like a good man. Keep your head up and know we are all here for you.

Good luck.

"I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it." - Maya Angelou

Posts: 1473 | Registered: Apr 2013

JustWow♀ 19636Member # 19636

Posted: 5:33 PM, June 20th (Thursday), 2013

Sorry you find yourelf here, but as you've learned, it is a great community.

As for your wife, take your time coming to any particular concluson about whether you want to R with her or not. She is still an addict. A month of rehab will help her learn to try to stay sober, and help her BEGIN the path to being a recovering alcoholic, but she still has a long, long way to go.

A healthy M can happen between 2 healthy people, but not so much between an addict and a healthy person.

Just because "camp" is out in 2 weeks, doesn't mean you have a deadline by then to make your decision - and if someone is imposing that deadline - I'd reccommend you respectfully decline. This is gonna take a long, long time. The normal timeline is 2-5 years to revocer from infidelity. In our experience, addiction recovery does NOT speed that process up, tends to slow it down quite a bit.

Concentrate on you and your kiddos. Either path is long and hard. Take your time and choose the wisest path for you.

BW - Reconciling

edited for typos (I always have to!)

Posts: 3679 | Registered: May 2008 | From: Midwest

Ghostrider♂ 32604Member # 32604

Posted: 6:17 PM, June 20th (Thursday), 2013

My WW used a somewhat similar argument at the beginning. It seemed so superficial. It was.

BH (me), WW (her), 2 boys

"You will never be the same. You accept it. You will never have closure. There is no such a word as closure. Closure does not exist. Life is different. Now you get to choose what you're going to do with it."

Painpaingoaway. You are a sharp diagnostician. I am a physician and have thought this (bordeline pd) before she started drinking after our 2nd child. I gave u one snippet and bingo, the diagnosis! Her most pervasive trait is rapid alternation of love/hate.
You guys are awesome!

Married 14 years
Dated 5 years
D-day May 2013
Trying to R, keep her sober and protect my kids.
2 kiddos 11 and 8

The justifications with a wayward mindset are bad enough--add substance abuse, and it goes right off the charts.

It's been over 2 years since I put my alcoholic WW in a detox program, but as you probably already know, it is worthless unless your wife WANTS to help herself. Luckily for my WW, she had hit her rock bottom...and wanted the help that she was given.

It took me a long, long time to accept that the alcohol greatly influenced her wayward behavior. I simply would not/could not allow the two to comingle. I wanted ZERO excuse/explanation/attempted rationalization that alcohol had any part to do with her cheating---and it was all her sound decisions to betray me.

But that wasn't true.

I read from a different poster here a long time ago, who had an alcoholic WH, that stated it is not a matter of if an alcoholic will cheat, but when an alcoholic will cheat. Obviously, this is not true in all cases, but I can't help but feel how much that statement resonates with me. I am not giving any excuse in the least, but merely trying to make a little sense out of a senseless situation.

I hope that she gets the help that she needs, but more importantly that you get the help that you need. Hopefully that help is right here.

All work and no play has just cost me my wife--Gary Puckett
D-Day: 9/18/09 D-Day#2: 2/19/10 The Marriage Killer: 6/6/11
Heading for D

Posts: 2264 | Registered: Feb 2010 | From: northeast

m334455♀ 26893Member # 26893

Posted: 3:25 AM, June 21st (Friday), 2013

You seem like a smart guy so I'm going to cut to the chase. Your kids need stability more than your broken drunk cheating and probably remorseless and unfixable wife needs your support. The smartest thing you can do is file before she comes out of treatment and keep her out of the home entirely.

My neighbor went through this with his wife for years. After her last stint in rehab she came home with a 20/20 camera crew! No better court evidence than a drunken interview on 20/20(!)

Get some counseling for yourself to figure out why you've let it get this bad (as in still in the marriage and exposing your children to mean mommy who needs rehab)

Look, life is tough. But when you're dealing with addictions and mental illnesses it is much tougher. It's OK for ANY of that to be a deal breaker

BW 38, 5 kids
Dday Dec. 2009

Posts: 4034 | Registered: Dec 2009

stronger08♂ 16953Member # 16953

Posted: 3:31 AM, June 21st (Friday), 2013

As a medical professional you know the drill about substance abuse. It can and does impair judgment, actions, and overall attitude of the abuser. Most substance abusers also self medicate themselves due to an underlying mental condition. It can range from moderate depression to mental serious disease. Its imperative she gets herself treatment in one form or another. After her detox some intense therapy is needed. And keep in mind that the standard 12 step approach does not work for everyone. Does this negate her actions ? Absolutely not !!! Does society excuse away a drunk driver who kills someone in an accident ? No it does not. The person is held responsible for their actions. I feel its the same principle in regard to infidelity. There must be consequences to ones actions. Don't allow anyone to use her alcoholism as an excuse for her behavior.

You cant pick and choose what misdeeds can be blamed on substance abuse and what can not be. Its all the same pathology. Just like the drunk driver who willingly decides to drive. The WS willingly enters into an A. Personally I started to hit the bottle pretty hard after my D-day. I was an emotional wreck and was barely able to function. The booze helped me forget what was going on in my miserable life and I could actually get a few hours of sleep. This progressed into an almost daily routine of drinking. Thank god that I was able to get myself into therapy and was prescribed some A/D's. While I was able to pull myself from the brink I can see how personal issues can and do lead to abuse. Yet I did not sleep with anyone during my troubled times. I was still M and honored that vow.

What you need to do is two fold here. First and foremost she must get help for her addiction. She can not begin to try and salvage herself along with fixing a M she has pretty much destroyed. I pray she accepts inpatient treatment for an undetermined amount of time. That would be my first demand of her. Its because during her stay that you can absorb what has gone on without the daily torture of seeing the person you loved the most who tossed you into the gutter of life. Use that time to get yourself in order. Do what you need to do to heal. After your in a better place you can decide on what course of action you will take. If you decide to R there are great articles and advice on how to proceed in the healing library. I can and do believe people have the capacity to change. They just need to desire to. If you decide to D there is no shame in that either. Its a risk she willingly took when she entered into her A. Its going to be a long hard road ahead of you. Nothing will change overnight and like the cliché says "Time heals all wounds" I want to welcome you to our forum and hope you stay with us while you navigate this hell. We have all walked in your shoes and this is a great source of support and advice. Hang in there bro. This will get worse before it gets better.

You cant eat soup with chopsticks.

Posts: 6129 | Registered: Nov 2007

NeverAgain2013♀ 38121Member # 38121

Posted: 8:33 AM, June 21st (Friday), 2013

I was married to a recovering alcoholic (he was sober 3 years when we met).

Amazingly enough, even though I was touched many times by his humility, at the same time, it became very loud and clear that everything was about HIM and anytime something bad happened it was NEVER his fault - it was everyone else's. If he didn't get a job after interviewing, it was because the hiring manager was a jerk; if his pants ripped, it was because I wasn't a good seamstress and didn't anticipate that they might rip (out of the blue one day) and should have thought to shore up those stitches just in case they DID. My bad.

The point was, no matter what happened, it was always someone else's fault.

Your wife has that same type of warped thinking I became all too familiar with - her affair wasn't HER fault.

It was yours.

Expect a lot more of that twisted thinking whether she becomes sober or not.

Be careful - that 'knight in shining armor' may very well be nothing more than an assclown wrapped in tin foil.
ME: 50+ years old and cute as a button :-)
Ex-WBF: Just a lying, cheating, gravy-sucking pig - and I left him in 2012.

Posts: 2417 | Registered: Jan 2013 | From: USA

Twitchy♂ 25393Member # 25393

Posted: 8:41 AM, June 21st (Friday), 2013

She started the relationship as friends to make you jealous, because you refused to go to MC. It grew out of control, but I wanted to get caught so I could force you into MC.

Total Bull Crap. It's a twisted excuse that lets her maintain some sort of perverted sense of morality. Like it was a desperate plea for help that you missed and therefore went wrong and is all your fault.

Away you will go, sailing in a race among the ruins.
If you plan to face tomorrow, do it soon. Gordon Lightfoot

Posts: 670 | Registered: Sep 2009 | From: Ontario - Canada

Rattus2000♂ 39599Member # 39599

Posted: 11:18 AM, June 21st (Friday), 2013

Your collective insights are remarkable. Here is my plan.

180 all the way. If she is a bordeline, fear of abandonment is their defining insecurity. That puts me in the cat-bird seat. I am busily paving many roads, and taking my time to decide which one to walk.

In the 2 weeks she has been in, I have assigned my life insurance to my personal trust which she is not a part of. I have retained a divorce atty and have everything ready to file for 100% custody, but i will keep that option ready in my front pocket.

I have taken back her fancy car and gave her my beater of a truck. I have taken the loads of jewelery I purchased with my own money and sent it to my sister to hold for my daughter. Her phone number changed. Facebook accounted de-activated. Credit cards in my control. Mutual friends and neighbors briefed on our situation.

I am going to reduce the total days I work and my on-call nights to make me healthier and get more time with the kids. It will be a significant cut in pay, that that will negatively effect her lifestyle, but improve mine. Before, i was a fool, allowing her unchecked spending and if we got close to the financial margins, I would just work more. 80 hrs a week and 2 weekends a month, would easily become 90+ hrs a week and 3 weekend a month.

We have a lake house, which going there for the summer is a generational tradition.

I am going to go with her and my kids this year for the sake of the kids. Moreover I will continue on the 180 while doing 360s on my wakeboard. While there she will have to face over 20 of my family members that know everything. It will be fun to watch the thumbscrews tighten.

Thanks again for sharing all your insight and experience to make my life less chaotic.

Married 14 years
Dated 5 years
D-day May 2013
Trying to R, keep her sober and protect my kids.
2 kiddos 11 and 8

Posts: 16 | Registered: Jun 2013 | From: Southwest

OK now♀ 14459Member # 14459

Posted: 12:50 PM, June 21st (Friday), 2013

Seems you have everything organized and a good plan in place.
One further point, if you file for divorce now 100% custody is a virtual given. If she sobers up, but still continues to cheat, she might be able to successfully counter your claim for full custody if you divorce sometime in the future.

A minor point, but currently all the advantage lies with you.

Posts: 1978 | Registered: May 2007 | From: NC

painpaingoaway♀ 27196Member # 27196

Posted: 4:24 PM, June 21st (Friday), 2013

Wow! Holy shit! She is going to go bonkers, so have a plan in place so the kids will not be exposed to her inevitable meltdown. It could get ugly, very very ugly, possibly violent.